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Energy Challenge #2

Challenge Instructions

Do some creative accounting with your household energy usage!

Did you know?

Hot water heating makes up about 20-30% of the carbon emissions of an average home?

Get Started

Why?

Few people can relate to a "pound" of carbon, but most nearly all of us know the value of a dollar. Before diving into changes, my darlings, it'll be good to know where you started! But I don't care for the look of numbers much, so please turn it into a delightfully pretty picture!

How?

Find out how much your household spends every month on electricity and heat.

Come up with a creative way to represent those costs (i.e. with unique comparisons)

Make a picture of your creative household energy cost comparison and complete this challenge by posting it below!

Alternative

Do this "creative accounting" for your business, school, or a friend.

Resources

What You Could Do

Write a haiku about your energy bill.

Make a pie (not a pie chart, a pie) representing your energy expenditures.

Line up a bunch of glasses, fill them with different colored juices, and have each one represent a portion of your energy expenses.

Challenge Complete

Challenge:

Do some creative accounting with your household energy usage!

We found out from the business manager the average number of gallons used per month and the average number of kWh used per month from 2/14 to 2/15. The average number of gallons per month was 10, 604 gallons and the average number of kWh per month was 5828. It was hard for us to wrap our heads around the electricity use, but we could think about the water usage in relation to how many gallons of water it takes to produce 1 pound of beef. In particular, our water use per month, is, on average, enough to produce around 4 pounds of beef.

This got us to thinking that, instead of representing those costs with a picture or graph, we would think about ways to reduce our water and electricity use. Some of the ways we talked about to reduce electricity use were: to have the lights off in the classroom for much of the day; limit our use of the overhead projector (a hard one); and unplug computers and other electrical devices on the weekends and holiday. Some the ways we talked about to reduce water use were: use hand sanitizer instead of soap and water, get faucets that are turned on with a sensor.

The discussion of energy also reminded the teacher that the class needs to test the solar oven that the class made in February. We are hoping that Wednesday of this week we will try to cook some apples in our oven. See the picture of our oven below.